


Just Like a Crowd Rioting Inside

by oppressa



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
Genre: Comics references, Community: 1sentence, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Guilt, Motherhood, Parent-Child Relationship, ie Raven trying to compensate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7603504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oppressa/pseuds/oppressa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifty one-sentence fics, from the 1sentence community Beta set, split into ten sentences a chapter (cause every ten start with a different letter more or less and it felt right?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1-10

**Author's Note:**

> This part's mainly Raven -- maybe the next set will be mostly about Kurt.

#01 Walking  
He shifts them a little further towards their destination, perhaps another hundred metres in one jump, and scrambles to keep up with her, on two feet, in the backstreets of Berlin.

#02 Waltz  
Raven is on a grand palatial dancefloor, taking a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, when she feels the first kick and the delicate flute shatters in her hand.

#03 Wishes  
Once upon a time, she might have wished to have a child who was normal and gifted in the ordinary, acceptable ways, to be good at music, or at math – her view alters somewhere along the line, and she comes to recognise their kind as _Mutatis mutandis_ , the necessary changes having been made.

#04 Wonder  
_You're the only hero here_ , she wants to tell him, as he looks at her with undisguised wonder in his eyes, _your existence is a shining miracle_.

#05 Worry  
“We're not leaving without you,” He says, and she's glad that Quicksilver answers him with typical confidence because a lump is stuck in her fucking throat.

#06 Whimsy  
It comes as no surprise Kurt is enthralled to the mall, a temple of modern decadence and fun the likes of which Apocalypse would have erased from the earth.

#07 Wasteland  
Changing her form before going into battle is as much a gesture to him as it is to Scott and Jean, worried about their fledgling powers going out of control – it means _now we can be mutant and proud, blue and beautiful._

#08 Whisky and Rum  
Angel and Raven used to pass a hipflask between them when they spoke about the X-men and the taste is forever associated with loss – if she catches Kurt drinking before a mission, he'll be off it faster than he can finish swallowing.

#09 War  
He wouldn't be nearly old enough to fight yet, and not the right nationality, still he's partly why she searches out the obviously different kids in the bases in Vietnam, withdrawn from the lines in order to get cut up for their service.

#10 Weddings  
Marriage was just a convenience to her, she smiled and she waved and she spoke the words but the absence of feeling was frightening, really, compared to what she feels for her son, the one that actually ended up baring Wagner's name.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: Kate Bush, Mother Stands for Comfort. I chose that lyric because it reminded me of the scene where Raven first saw Kurt as a young adult in _Apocalypse_


	2. 11-20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #12 is a reference to _Kaltes Klares Wasser_ by Malaria which played during the cage scene in the movie.

#11 Birthday  
He might not even be alive by now, but Raven does not forget – each year she raises a glass to him, wherever she is, with the pronouncement, “Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, baby boy.”

#12 Blessing  
He splashes the holy water from the font onto his forehead, running it through his hair with his fingers, feeling it lift his arms, his hands, his shoulders, his soul.

#13 Bias  
It doesn't seem like Raven is the type to have favourites among her students, or to be fond of anyone very much, yet she appears to have taken him under her wing in a way that brooks no argument from anybody.

#14 Burning  
Raven had burned all her bridges before she came for Kurt – he is the one between her and her home.

#15 Breathing  
His breath is still rapid and strained like that of a scared animal, until they're pretty clear of the club and she tells him to take a rest, rubbing his back; “Hush, hush...” she instructs him, “they can't hurt you any more.”

#16 Breaking  
His body screams in protest as he tries to transport all of them from the diving plane, and foremost in his broken thoughts, so selfish with all these people's lives depending on him, is that he has to do this in order to see her again.

#17 Belief  
He always had faith that she was out there, somewhere, his mother – even though he never expected it to be _her_ , perhaps he dreamed.

#18 Balloon  
Some fairs sprung up around the circus more than once and he'd see gangs of happy children with their friends, their siblings, their parents and it made him ache though by then he was too old for candy and peanuts and coloured balloons.

#19 Balcony  
The first thing he takes in about Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters shouldn't be that it's a paradise of so many things for him to hang off, to land on – if she asks him what he makes of it he'll think of something else.

#20 Bane  
“How can you be sure he's still in there?” a man asks; someone gives the box a hard kick, it lands on its side with a sizzle, and Kurt yowls, clutching his hands around himself, smelling his own singed hair – _aufhalten, genug, bitte, bitte_ – another one of his captors replies “That's how, _dummkopf_.”

 

 


	3. 21-30

#21 Quiet  
The first time he sees her after Cairo he just looks at her, between some of the younger students fussing over him, asking him what it was like, and smiles bashfully.

#22 Quirks  
He's so pleased with the jacket that clashes vibrantly with his skin, and she remembers expressing herself as a teenager, but she still thinks that fucking circus has a lot to answer for.

#23 Question  
“What do these mean?” He asks her, raising her hand to touch the patterns on his face that look like they have more purpose than hers – she replies sadly, “You think I'd know?”

#24 Quarrel  
There was a final quarrel between her and Azazel that ended everything; he courted and discarded her, and she was mad, mad enough to transfer her anger onto a complete innocent in the whole affair.

#25 Quitting  
He realises she must have had a good reason for leaving the X-men, still he can't imagine any incentive that would make him do the same.

#26 Jump  
He has her build, flexible and athletic, even more than she is with that extra acrobatic skill, he just doesn't seem to want to harness it to fight, no matter how many times a Sentinel sweeps him aside like a gnat.

#27 Jester  
“Foolish child” says En Sabah Nur; she transforms into Psylocke, who stalks forward to put Peter out of his misery, to take him off display; _Erik can't you feel it? He's your_ son, _can't you_ feel –

#28 Jousting  
Fencing is a break through, at last – they can make it seem like it's a game, scoring points, and all the while his competitive spirit, the desire to win against an opponent, is growing stronger.

#29 Jewel  
She is beautiful, like a brilliant blue jewel, and though he's comfortable enough with himself sometimes he feels like he's only a shadow of her.

#30 Just  
She would say she was to blame for everything that happened to him, but in his experience, there is balance in the world – she also gave him so much more than she knows.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #23 - I never really dug the ritual scarification thing in X2, even though I think only movie Nightcrawler has the scars - but as movie Mystique also has facial markings I guess I just prefer the explanation he may have been born with them and they're another mystery to him about himself.


	4. 31-40

#31 Smirk  
She smirks whenever she looks at the polaroid in her wallet, of his happiness at the turn things had taken lit up in a dazzling flash.

#32 Sorrow  
He weeps for his first fallen friend the way she wept for hers, and she comforts him, while thinking _sweetheart, this is just the start._

#33 Stupidity  
“You're not stupid,” She says firmly, as he growls in frustration and crumples up another page of his paper; if anyone could be forgiven for having gaps in their education, it's him.

#34 Serenade  
Raven often pretended to be delighted by the romantic gestures of many powerful people besotted with the form she presented to them; it feels even more hollow with the knowledge of how her son clung to any small act of generosity he was ever shown.

#35 Sarcasm  
“I'm blue,” He introduces himself cheerfully to Hank, there being only so many blue people in the world; she winces inwardly _no, Crawler, please make it even more obvious._

#36 Sordid  
She doesn't think Azazel would appreciate the irony that the result of her liaisons with him should be the absolute purest thing.

#37 Soliloquy  
Magneto's speech terrified a shy seven year old in Bavaria but the woman who looked like _he did_ didn't have to speak a word in order to change his life forever.

#38 Sojourn  
“Field trip.” She says, taking hold of his arm, determined to show him American culture doesn't start and end at the mall, “Empire State Building, you and me.”

#39 Share  
She sees herself not only in his colouring but also in the way he laughs and frowns, the curve of his mouth and the straight, dark eyebrows.

#40 Solitary  
The rain falls past the barred window of the painted caravan as Kurt shivers in his straw bed, dreaming of warmth and light and someone to talk to, just one friendly face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the course of writing this chapter I found out that the Mystique make up is so inconsistent regarding whether or not she has eyebrows, movie to movie. But comics Mystique mostly has black eyebrows...I can't believe I'm making so much of this, only that Azazel has some crazy brow going on and I was trying to say Kurt didn't get those...


	5. 41-50

#41 Nowhere  
This is a situation where he could help others, he could save her the way she did him, but the electrical charge in the helicopter means they're going nowhere.

#42 Neutral  
“Is there a file on Nightcrawler?” She asks Moira, in the most neutral tone of voice she can muster; turns out there is, but it doesn't go that far back – his powers shrouded him in Germany, it doesn't mention his parentage, and it won't contain that information as long as she can keep them in the dark.

#43 Nuance  
Impersonating others down to the slightest detail is just what she does, she never really gives it any thought, although Kurt's particular form of buoyant energy might require some study to get right.

#44 Near  
Even though she always wants to keep him close, Raven knows there's every possibility something could come between them given his outlook verses hers, and lead to them being on opposite sides.

#45 Natural  
It's 1988 and in five years, she's hardly aged at all; meanwhile he seems to be ageing naturally and it starts to sink in that at some stage, he'll probably look older than her.

#46 Horizon  
“As far as I can see” isn't strictly very reliable, but she realises it'll have to be good enough.

#47 Valiant  
He somehow has the power to meet the eyes that look at him like a freak, now, and the rhythm of his heart doesn't change.

#48 Virtuous  
“You showed everybody that day. You showed the whole world, we're not to be feared” -- Raven shrugs, because that's how he wound up in a cage.

#49 Victory  
She presents him with a small model of the Siegessäule, and doesn't say what it's for, he just figures she's sorry for taking him away when he wanted to come with her in the first place.

#50 Defeat  
She's dying and the loves of her life are flashing before her eyes, Charles, Erik, Azazel, and then as her mind starts to cave in, only the youngest and most recently discovered is left, her incredible Kurt.

 


End file.
